Winner of the European Union Literature Prize, Peter Terrin's The Guard is a haunting novel of perceived oppression by the an omnipresent, but unknown, authority. In the near future, Harry and Michel live in the basement of a luxury apartment block, guarding the inhabitants. No one goes outside. The world might be at war, it might even have been plunged into nuclear winter. No one knows. But one weekend, all of the residents leave the block, one by one. All but the man on floor 29. Harry and Michel stick to their posts. All they know, all they can hope for, is that if they are vigilant, the "Organization" will reward them with a promotion to an elite cadre of security officers. But what if there were no one left to guard? Playing on our darkest fears, The Guard is a tautly observed novel by a writer of striking and stylish originality. Winner of the European Union Literature Prize, Peter Terrin's The Guard is a haunting novel of perceived oppression by the an omnipresent, but unknown, authority. In the near future, Harry and Michel live in the basement of a luxury apartment block, guarding the inhabitants. No one goes outside. The world might be at war, it might even have been plunged into nuclear winter. No one knows. But one weekend, all of the residents leave the block, one by one. All but the man on floor 29. Harry and Michel stick to their posts. All they know, all they can hope for, is that if they are vigilant, the "Organization" will reward them with a promotion to an elite cadre of security officers. But what if there were no one left to guard? Playing on our darkest fears, The Guard is a tautly observed novel by a writer of striking and stylish originality

Selection - 2.5 Before America Singer met Prince Maxon . . . Before she entered the Selection . . . She was in love with a boy named Aspen Leger

**The newest legal thriller from #1 *New York Times* bestselling author John Grisham. This masterfully plotted, perfectly paced novel confirms that Grisham remains America's favorite storytelle** r. In the small north Florida town of Seabrook, a young lawyer named Keith Russo was shot dead at his desk as he worked late one night. The killer left no clues behind. There were no witnesses, no real suspects, no one with a motive. The police soon settled on Quincy Miller, a young black man who was once a client of Russo's. Quincy was framed, convicted, and sent to prison for life. For twenty-two years he languished in prison with no lawyer, no advocate on the outside. Then he wrote a letter to Guardian Ministries, a small innocence group founded by a lawyer/minister named Cullen Post. Guardian handles only a few innocence cases at a time, and Post is its only investigator. He travels the South fighting wrongful convictions and taking cases no one else will touch

The first title in the acclaimed and bestselling crime series featuring Jack Taylor, a disgraced former police detective from Galway. Mourning the death of his father, Jack is slowly drinking himself into oblivion when he is asked to investigate a teenage suicide. Plunged into a dangerous confrontation with a powerful businessman and with the Irish police — The Guards — who have an unhealthy interest in Jack’s past, he finds that all is not as simple as it at first seemed and a dark conspiracy unfolds

Shortly after Thomas Marlowe's arrival in Williamsburg, Virginia, all in that newfound capital city are speaking his name. With the bounty from his years as a pirate--a life he intends to renounce and keep forever secret--he purchases a fine plantation from a striking young widow, and soon after kills the favorite son of one of Virginia's most powerful clans while defending her honor. But it is a daring feat of remarkable cunning that truly sets local tongues wagging: a stunning move that wins Marlowe command of Plymouth Prize, the colony's decrepit guardship.But even as the enigmatic Marlowe bravely leads the King's sailors in bloody pitched battle against the cutthroats who infest the waters off Virginia's shores, a threat from his illicit past looms on the horizon that could doom Marlowe and his plans. Jean-Pierre LeRois, captain of the Vengeance--a brigand notorious even among other brigands for his violence and debauchery--plots to seize the colony's wealth, forcing Marlowe to choose between losing all or facing the one man he fears. Only an explosive confrontation on the open sea can determine whether the Chesapeake will be ruled by the crown or the Brethren of the Coast

“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb…. As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever. Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGBd-LPgt3I

Based on actual events, The Guest is a profound portrait of a divided people haunted by a painful past, and a generation's search for reconciliation. During the Korean War, Hwanghae Province in North Korea was the setting of a gruesome fifty-two day massacre. In an act of collective amnesia the atrocities were attributed to American military, but in truth they resulted from malicious battling between Christian and Communist Koreans. Forty years later, Ryu Yosop, a minister living in America returns to his home village, where his older brother once played a notorious role in the bloodshed. Besieged by vivid memories and visited by the troubled spirits of the deceased, Yosop must face the survivors of the tragedy and lay his brother's soul to rest. Faulkner-like in its intense interweaving narratives, The Guest is a daring and ambitious novel from a major figure in world literature

The bride ‧ The plus one ‧ The best man ‧ The wedding planner ‧ The bridesmaid ‧ The body On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed. But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast. And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

THE NEW GUARDIANS OF DESTINY NOVEL Cult’s awareness, it shall rise:For centuries, the mages of Mekhana have done their best to hide themselves and their powers from the rapacious needs of their so-called Patron Deity, Mekha. Greatest of their secrets is the Vortex, a Fountain hidden in the heart of the Hydraulics Guild. But even after the dissolution of Mekha and the freeing of his people, Alonnen isn’t ready to reveal his guardianship to outsiders. Particularly when the remnants of Mekha’s priesthood start looking for a new monstrosity to worship. Hidden people, gather now; Fight the demons, fight your doubt. Gearman’s strength shall then endow, When Guild’s defender casts them out. Rexei has hidden more than her powers for most of her life; she has also hidden her gender, wary of the hungers of the old priesthood. Only in the safety of the Hydraulics Guild’s innermost secrets can she be herself. While the rest of her people struggle to reinvent themselves and find a deity they can trust, Rexei struggles to trust just one man, the Guardian of the Vortex. Events are moving fast, though; the priesthood is desperate for any new source of power, even a demonic one that requires certain sacrifices to access

An obscure author, drawn in by the mysterious Guild of St. Cooper, must rewrite the history of a dying city. But the changes become greater than those he set out to make, and the story quickly unspools backward into an alternate history — a world populated by giant rhododendrons, space aliens, and TV's own Special Agent Dale Cooper. An editor at The Nervous Breakdown and co-founder of Monkey Bicycle, Shya Scanlon won the John Hawkes Prize in Fiction at Brown University, where he received his MFA. He lives in New York

The Owen Archer Series #9 Winter in the year of our Lord 1372. A river pilot falls into the icy waters of the River Ouse during a skirmish between dockworkers and the boys of the minster school, which include Owen Archer’s adopted son Jasper. But what began as a confrontation to return a boy’s stolen scrip becomes a murder investigation as the rescuers find the pilot dying of wounds inflicted before his plunge into the river. When another body is fished from the river upstream and Owen discovers that the boy Jasper sought to help has disappeared, Owen Archer convinces the archbishop that he must go in search of the boy. His lost scrip seems to hold the key to the double tragedy, but his disappearance leaves troubling questions: did he flee in fear? Or was he abducted? On the cusp of this new mystery, Owen accepts Jasper’s offer to accompany him to the boy’s home in the countryside, where they learn that a valuable cross has gone missing. A devastating fire and another drowning force Owen to make impossible choices, endangering not only himself, but the two innocents he fights to protect. The bond between fathers and sons proves strong, even between those not linked by blood

It’s been over twenty years since government assassin Will Robie left his hometown in Mississippi. Now a trained killer used to taking down enemies of the state, he was once remembered by the local residents as a wild sports star and girl-magnet. He left a lot of hearts broken, and a lot of people angry. Now he’s back. His estranged father, Dan, who is the local judge, has been arrested for murder and Robie wonders if it’s time to try to heal old wounds. A lot of bad blood has flowed between father and son, but Robie’s fellow agent, Jessica Reel, persuades him to stick around and confront his demons. Then another murder changes everything, and stone-cold killer Robie will finally have to come to grips with his toughest assignment of all. His family

Set against the background of a rich, gangster-ridden city on the Pacific Coast, James Hadley Chase in this new thriller tells the story of a lone investigator’s hunt for his partner’s killer. From the opening sentence to the last the tension mounts, as the avenging private eye pursues his quarry through every barrier and trap set up by the hoodlums. Written with that expert technique that gives to all James Hadley Chase’s novels their tremendous punch and drive, The Guilty Are Afraid is a worthy addition to his long list of non-stop, all-action thrillers that have to be read at a sitting

When Jack Sheppey ends up dead in a beach hut in a wealthy town on the coast of the Pacific, his former partner in their detective agency starts a desperate quest to find his killer. But as private investigator Lew Brandon soon learns, this becomes a non-stop, terrifying and deadly hunt that will take him right to the heart of gangster territory

Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn’s chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society “Best Nonfiction Book of the Twentieth Century” (Time magazine )

Saudi Arabia, 1991. Troops stationed at the Dhahran airbase are in a state of high alert. The chemical warfare detectors have sounded and the soldiers scramble to put on their protective suits. They sit in tense silence, reminding themselves of the vaccinations which will protect them from chemical weapons. Then the all-clear sounds, and the troops rejoice that they are unharmed — or so they think... England, 2002. Those same troops are getting ill. Their families are getting ill. Young ex-soldiers are dying from mysterious and varied diseases. And the survivors are angry. Steven Dunbar, a medical investigator with an elite Government agency, decides to probe further. But what he discovers shocks him to the core. For the deadliest threat of all lurks not in the Saudi oilfields or in Iraq, but in the plush boardrooms of Whitehall. And if something isn't done soon, then more innocent people will die

Strange things happen in The Gulp. The residents have grown used to it. The isolated Australian harbour town of Gulpepper is not like other places. Some maps don’t even show it. And only outsiders use the full name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp. The place has a habit of swallowing people. A truck driver thinks the stories about The Gulp are made up to scare him. Until he gets there. Teenage siblings try to cover up the death of their mother, but their plans go drastically awry. A rock band invite four backpackers to a party at their house, where things get dangerously out of hand. A young man loses a drug shipment and his boss gives him 48 hours to make good on his mistake. Under the blinking eye of the old lighthouse, a rock fisher makes the strangest catch of his life. Five novellas. Five descents into darkness. Welcome to The Gulp, where nothing is as it seems

In Tokyo a college student’s discovery and eventual obsession with a stolen handgun awakens something dark inside him and threatens to consume not only his life but also his humanity. Nakamura’s Japanese debut is a noir-spun tale that probes the violence inherent to aesthetics. On a nighttime walk along a Tokyo riverbank, a young man named Nishikawa stumbles on a dead body, beside which lies a gun. From the moment Nishikawa decides to take the gun, the world around him blurs. Knowing he possesses the weapon brings an intoxicating sense of purpose to his dull university life. But soon Nishikawa’s personal entanglements become unexpectedly complicated: he finds himself romantically involved with two women while his biological father, whom he’s never met, lies dying in a hospital. Through it all, he can’t stop thinking about the gun — and the four bullets loaded in its chamber. As he spirals into obsession, his focus is consumed by one idea: that possessing the gun is no longer enough — he must fire it

Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life ... and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch ... they smiled

At a secret arms-design contest in Stalin’s Soviet Union, army technicians submitted a stubby rifle with a curved magazine. Dubbed the AK-47, it was selected as the Eastern Bloc’s standard arm. Scoffed at in the Pentagon as crude and unimpressive, it was in fact a breakthrough—a compact automatic that could be mastered by almost anyone, last decades in the field, and would rarely jam. Manufactured by tens of millions in planned economies, it became first an instrument of repression and then the most lethal weapon of the Cold War. Soon it was in the hands of terrorists. In a searing examination of modern conflict and official folly, C. J. Chivers mixes meticulous historical research, investigative reporting, and battlefield reportage to illuminate the origins of the world’s most abundant firearm and the consequences of its spread. The result, a tour de force of history and storytelling, sweeps through the miniaturization and distribution of automatic firepower, and puts an iconic object in fuller context than ever before. The Gun dismantles myths as it moves from the naÏve optimism of the Industrial Revolution through the treacherous milieu of the Soviet Union to the inside records of the Taliban. Chivers tells of the 19th-century inventor in Indianapolis who designs a Civil War killing machine, insisting that more-efficient slaughter will save lives. A German attaché who observes British machine guns killing Islamic warriors along the Nile advises his government to amass the weapons that would later flatten British ranks in World War I. In communist Hungary, a locksmith acquires an AK-47 to help wrest his country from the Kremlin’s yoke, beginning a journey to the gallows. The Pentagon suppresses the results of firing tests on severed human heads that might have prevented faulty rifles from being rushed to G.I.s in Vietnam. In Africa, a millennial madman arms abducted children and turns them on their neighbors, setting his country ablaze. Neither pro-gun nor anti-gun, The Gun builds to a terrifying sequence, in which a young man who confronts a trio of assassins is shattered by 23 bullets at close range. The man survives to ask questions that Chivers examines with rigor and flair. Throughout, The Gun animates unforgettable characters—inventors, salesmen, heroes, megalomaniacs, racists, dictators, gunrunners, terrorists, child soldiers, government careerists, and fools. Drawing from years of research, interviews, and from declassified records revealed for the first time, he presents a richly human account of an evolution in the very experience of war

John Benton was one of the toughest men ever to wear a Texas Ranger badge.  But eight years ago, in August 1871, he hung up his guns for good. Or so he hoped. Then young Robby Coles challenged him to a fight over some imagined slight to the boy’s sixteen-year-old girlfriend.  At first Benton tried to laugh off the affair.  Why, the boy was little more than a child.  But rumors and gossip spread like wildfire through their dusty frontier town and soon enough the entire community seems to be goading both men towards a fatal confrontation neither one truly wants. Benton doesn’t want to kill again.  Robby is secretly terrified of facing the legendary gunfighter.  Yet, with both men’s honor on the line, is there any way to avoid a duel to the death?

It's 1786 and Alan Lewrie has his own ship at last, the Alacrity. Small but deadly, the Alacrity prowls the waters of the Caribbean, protecting British merchants from pirates. But Lewrie is still the same old rakehell he always was. Scandal sets tongues wagging in the Bahamas as the young captain thumbs his nose at propriety and makes a few well-planned conquests on land before sailing off to take on Calico Jack Finney, the boldest pirate in the Caribbean

A young couple deeply in love comes to seek Nero Wolfe’s help because the young woman’s husband has died. She believes he was murdered but because of her affair is afraid to go to the police. The mystery clue seems to concern the movement of the murder weapon. It takes much persuasion by Wolfe to get the young man to admit that he moved the gun, placing it next to the body. Both he and she were afraid that that the other had committed the crime. Would Wolfe help them uncover the truth? He consents and begins to interview all who may have a motive to kill the husband, a famous singer

The classic World War II thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Twelve hundred British soldiers isolated on the small island of Kheros off the Turkish coast, waiting to die. Twelve hundred lives in jeopardy, lives that could be saved if only the guns could be silenced. The guns of Navarone, vigilant, savage and catastrophically accurate. Navarone itself, grim bastion of narrow straits manned by a mixed garrison of Germans and Italians, an apparently impregnable iron fortress. To Captain Keith Mallory, skilled saboteur, trained mountaineer, fell the task of leading the small party detailed to scale the vast, impossible precipice of Navarone and to blow up the guns. The Guns of Navarone is the story of that mission, the tale of a calculated risk taken in the time of war . . 

The classic World War II thriller from the acclaimed master of action and suspense. Now issued for the first time as an e-book.Twelve hundred British soldiers isolated on the small island of Kheros off the Turkish coast, waiting to die. Twelve hundred lives in jeopardy, lives that could be saved if only the guns could be silenced. The guns of Navarone, vigilant, savage and catastrophically accurate. Navarone itself, grim bastion of narrow straits manned by a mixed garrison of Germans and Italians, an apparently impregnable iron fortress. To Captain Keith Mallory, skllled saboteur, trained mountaineer, fell the task of leading the small party detailed to scale the vast, impossible precipice of Navarone and to blow up the guns. The Guns of Navarone is the story of that mission, the tale of a calculated risk taken in the time of war…

A “what if” story that deals with a group of time-traveling South African white supremacists who supply Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia with AK-47s and small amounts of other supplies (including nitroglycerine tablets for treating Lee’s heart condition), leading to a Southern victory in the American Civil War war

A triumphant return to the characters of Booker Prize-winning writer Roddy Doyle's breakout first novel, The Commitments, now older, wiser, up against cancer and midlife. Jimmy Rabbitte is back. The man who invented the Commitments back in the 1980s is now 47, with a loving wife, 4 kids…and bowel cancer. He isn't dying, he thinks, but he might be. Jimmy still loves his music, and he still loves to hustle-his new thing is finding old bands and then finding the people who loved them enough to pay money online for their resurrected singles and albums. On his path through Dublin, between chemo and work he meets two of the Commitments-Outspan Foster, whose own illness is probably terminal, and Imelda Quirk, still as gorgeous as ever. He is reunited with his long-lost brother, Les, and learns to play the trumpet…. This warm, funny novel is about friendship and family, about facing death and opting for life. It climaxes in one of the great passages in Roddy Doyle's fiction: 4 middle-aged men at Ireland's hottest rock festival watching Jimmy's son's band, Moanin' at Midnight, pretending to be Bulgarian and playing a song called "I'm Goin' to Hell" that apparently hasn't been heard since 1932…. Why? You'll have to read The Guts to find out

The Guy Next Door anthology brings together three of the hottest contemporary romance authors of our day, Lori Foster, Susan Donovan, and Victoria Dahl. Ready, Set, Jett by Lori Foster A vacation from her no-strings romance with her sexy next-door neighbor. That's what Natalie Alexander needs to get her head—and heart—together. But her solo trip south turns into a disaster when gorgeous Jett Sutter turns up with another challenge. Gail's Gone Wild by Susan Donovan Single mom Gail Chapman insists on chaperoning her teenage daughter's spring-break trip to Key West. But she never expects to face temptation—in the hunky form of Jesse Batista, the mysterious man in the cottage next door. Just One Taste by Victoria Dahl All-work-and-no-play businessman Eric Donovan won't be distracted by a «businesswoman» who's all wrong for him. Beth Cantrell owns a women's erotica shop! And she has a juicy little secret. Can she tempt him to put pleasure before business for once?